By Hal Johnson
Herald Writer

After working to help struggling African Americans in his native Shenango Valley, Rev. Alphonse Allen Jr. left for a career in Scranton, Pa.

When he returned to his hometown, "Not much has chanced, the pastor of Bethel AME Church in Scranton told those celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the Mercer County Courthouse.

Mercer County Anti-Discrimination Commission, and the Underground Railroad and Abolition Era Discussion Group of the Mercer County Historical Society organized the King Day celebration. The Anti-Discrimination Commission was formed to educate the public on race relations in the aftermath of an Aug. 8, 1998, Ku Klux Klan rally at the courthouse.

"The Klan is still alive here," said Rev. Martha Sanders, who recently resigned as head of the commission she founded. Building a bigger county jail and putting more police on the streets takes priority over curing causes for social woes, she said.

Few blacks sit on local city councils and there are few black policemen, Rev. Allen said. The county has only one black assistant public defender and there are no blacks in the county District Attorney's Office or serving as county judges, the former vice president of the Mercer County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said.

"Hard working men and women are left out of positions of power," Rev. Allen said.

"To feel really welcomed here, we need to see an African American occupying one of the judicial seats in this great building, said Minister Russell Penn of the Second Baptist Church, Farrell.

If blacks cannot move forward, King's dream of freedom for all people "will turn into a nightmare," Penn said.

Mercer County continues to experience "a slave and slave mater relationship," Rev. Allen said.

"We blacks in Mercer County have to compromise ourselves to get anywhere," Rev. Allen said.

"Whites are not entirely to blame. Black people allowed this to happen by not working enough to change the conditions of the system," he said.

Blacks "have got to develop a warrior mentality," Rev. Allen said. He said he was not talking about blacks battling on the streets, but black men battling to raise their children at home.

Blacks need to take control of their lives and their culture, he said. "If we are going to move forward as a black community in Mercer County, we must move away from the mental midgets. They tell us what they can do for us that we can do for ourselves," Rev. Allen said.

A white culture dominates the multicultural Mercer County, he said. "If Mercer County is going to move on, we don't want you to tolerate the differences, we want you to accept the differences," Rev. Allen said.